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2 Kings 18 · a question people ask

2 Kings says there was no king like Hezekiah, and then says the same of Josiah. How can both be true?

In the text

The book says both, in its own words, and doesn't set them side by side. Of Hezekiah: "He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that after him was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among them that were before him" (18:5). Of Josiah, five chapters on: "There was no king like him before him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; and there was none like him who arose after him" (23:25). Readers explain the two verses in more than one way. 2 Kings doesn't say which, and no way of fitting them together is given here.

The verses

“He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that after him was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among them that were before him.”
2 Kings 18:5 · World English Bible
“There was no king like him before him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; and there was none like him who arose after him.”
2 Kings 23:25 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 2 Kings 18

2 Kings 18: What confidence is this?

2 Kings 18 turns on one word: the book says Hezekiah "trusted in the LORD" (18:5), and Rabshakeh throws the same Hebrew verb back seven times. The king who broke the bronze serpent Moses had made (18:4) paid Assyria with the silver of the LORD's house (18:15), and his people met the mockery with silence, because he had said, "Don’t answer him" (18:36).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions